Pretending's So Comfortable
by MeredithBrody
Summary: Brody has a slight crisis on her birthday. (Brody/Pride friendship)(Set just before ep7)


_**You guys are gonna get sick of these oneshots at some point over the summer, I swear. But this is how I'm gonna see the hiatus through. So. This is set just before the start of episode 7 and it's just friendship, no doubt unless you're Steph. The title is from the song "Silence" by As It Is. Anyway, thanks for reading, please read and review, as always. ALSO, if you have any suggestions of stories, hit me up yo. I have psyched myself out of writing my original summer plan. So this is where I'm up to.  
Shin xx**_

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" **We're at this place in our lives, we've come all this way, and I got nothing to show for it."** _ **Terry 'Men of a Certain Age'**_

Brody wasn't sure how long she'd just been sat in the courtyard when she heard Pride come up beside her. It was her birthday, and today she was 37 years old. She'd been in New Orleans for almost 6 months, and all she could think was that she needed to do more. She was 37 years old, and she had absolutely nothing to show for her almost-four-decades on the planet. "You're looking glum." Pride clearly realised she wasn't feeling the best, so it wasn't worth lying.

"Yeah." She admitted, shaking her head. It took a lot for her to admit even that though. While she truly like the people here, and felt accepted by them... she wasn't sure that it was time to talk frankly about her being bothered by the fact there was no tangible proof of who she was.

"Wanna talk about it?" Pride asked, sitting beside her and nudging her shoulder with a smile. She tried to return it, but it didn't work for some reason. Probably because she was far too miserable. She would talk, if she knew what to say.

"I'm not sure I know what to say." She just didn't know how to phrase it, how to tell anyone exactly what was on her mind. She'd felt like this before, but nobody had ever cared enough to actually ask her what she wanted.

"I know it's your birthday." He said quietly and looked at her. She was shocked enough to just stare at him for a little while, she wasn't sure how to take that he knew what was on her mind, but that was something. Then she remembered that she hadn't told anyone her birthday.

"How did you-" She started to ask, before she remember that despite appearances to the contrary, he was actually her boss. there were more than a dozen ways he could have found out today was her birthday, but most obvious would have been her file. Asking straight out seemed like the best plan. "Personnel file?"

"Yeah, I didn't tell anyone." That said everything about Pride, he wouldn't tell anyone anything if she hadn't indicated it was alright for him to do so. She wasn't ready to share her birthday with anyone else.

"Thanks. I just..." She trailed off, trying to think of more ways to say these things. She loved that Pride knew her well to guess how she was feeling, it made her feel more at home here than she thought would be possible. "I don't celebrate my birthday much."

"Too much a reminder of getting older?" He asked, and Brody just thought for a minute how to answer that. At least answering it the way she thought was best.

She just nodded. She wasn't ready to talk about Emily. She'd get there, but right now she wasn't ready, and while she was certain that Pride knew about her sister, he was tactful enough not to bring it up. "Yeah, and some days I wonder what I've done in my life. I've been too much a workaholic to have a successful relationship, I've no family." She thought about James and her parents, but James was wherever he was, and she'd never been close to her parents. That wasn't a problem really.

"That's bothering you?" He asked, and she had to admit that it was a little. It wouldn't normally, most days she didn't even think about it. But right now it was truly bothering her and she hate that it was a problem, because she always told herself she didn't need a family to be successful. In days like this though, her brain was rebelling, and telling her that without a family she was a failure.

"A bit. Like, I'm at this place in my life, I've come all this way... and I got nothing to show for it." It was an interesting place, somewhere she hated being. She didn't normally need anything to prove that she'd done something, but all of a sudden right now she needed something and she wasn't sure what would work.

"You're maybe judging yourself too harshly Merri." Pride shook his head and wrapped an arm around her, squeezing her shoulder. "You've done a lot, and I'm sure that anyone looking at you would be able to see that." He was being far too kind, because that wasn't how this worked.

"That's nice of you to say, but it's not true." She was fairly certain that anyone who saw her would see how she was feeling right now, and that was just grumpy and exhausted and a little over-emotional. She would probably feel better after some sleep, but in this mood she wouldn't be able to sleep.

"Do you know how many female interrogators I know who are any good?" That was an interesting question, but Pride held up 3 fingers, and she realised that she was in that number, at least she assumed she was, as she was in interrogation here every case. It was how she'd been trained. "I can count it on one hand. You may not believe it, but you have made a huge impact on everyone here. That has to count for something."

"It does, it really does." She loved that she had slipped into this stupid family and how odd it was, but it was how they worked, somehow. They were odd and a little off the wall. But it just was that her brain wasn't accepting that as a good enough reason. "I just don't really know how to convince myself that that's something."

"It is." Pride agreed with her, and Brody had to shake her head. It really was easy for him to say that, because he had a daughter, and he'd had a marriage. Though his marriage may had faltered in the end.

"It's easy for you to say King, you have Laurel, you've built this place from the ground up." She knew from experience that starting something like this from the ground up was not easy, so he had so much to show, and she had nothing. Literally nothing. She hated that, but it was true. She didn't even have a cat. "You have everything to show for your years. I've spent so long running that I have no idea anymore."

Pride had clearly had enough, and he stood up and motioned to her with a frown. "Merri, come with me." He started toward the stairs, and out of curiosity she started following him, she really just wanted to see where he was taking her.

"Fine." She couldn't sound like she was intrigued or happy about it, because that would not go along with her current mood. She knew that there was a lot she could do for it, but whatever Pride had in mind might help her even more. A second later they came to the balcony over the top edge of the building. She didn't come here often enough. She loved it up here, but she didn't get chance to come here.

"Tell me what you see." Pride asked as they looked out over the vista they were looking at, a nip just evident in the air, given it was November that probably wasn't all that surprising. It still wasn't cold, but given that she'd been in Chicago before coming here, she wasn't that surprised.

"The city." She answered looking out over the buildings. They didn't have the best view, but it was enough, and she realised there was something else she could see, something that was making her feel so much better than she'd been expecting. "The sunset."

"How many people in this city do you think are doubting themselves like you are right at this moment?" That was a question, how was she supposed to answer that. She didn't even know how many people there were in this city.

"I don't know?" She shrugged looking at him, wondering what on Earth his point could be now. This was not going how she'd expected, and she didn't even know what she'd expected. It was such a strange situation here, she was waiting on her boss to tell her why he'd brought her to a balcony at sunset. It seemed like some bad romance novel.

"The answer is probably hundreds, but every single one of them brings something individual to this city." He made an expansive gesture over the whole city, and all she could do was smile at how into this he had gotten. "It might be thought, it might be art. It might be something simple like their presence, or it could be complicated."

"Like?" She asked, just wondering what he'd said.

"Protecting the city. That's you." He pointed at her, and she just looked at him for a minute. She was only one person in this group who actually helped to protect the city. He should get the thanks for that.

"King." She started, but he just stopped her with a hand on her back and another gesture out over the city.

"Just trust me." He smiled and stood next to her, looking out over the city from their vantage point. He had a point, everyone worried about their position in the universe, but did it really matter if they were loved and happy where they lived. It shouldn't matter what they were thinking. What was that old saying, you were your own worst critic. If Pride thought she was worth something, then she was.


End file.
